


Duel Iago

by commas_and_ampersands



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Consent Issues, F/M, M/M, Silver Millennium Era, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 13:06:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12532096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commas_and_ampersands/pseuds/commas_and_ampersands
Summary: "Love is always a game.  Everything is.  What are our lovers if not the prize?"Endymion, Venus, and a Pyrrhic victory.





	Duel Iago

**Author's Note:**

> Written February 2006; revised October 2017.
> 
> See end notes for elaboration on the tags, but basically, this is not a fic where nice people do nice things and everyone gets a happy ending. This fic is in fact the exact opposite of that, plus a pretentious Shakespeare reference.
> 
> Special thanks to [JessicaPendragon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JessicaPendragon/) for reminding me this fic existed.

Endymion wondered if they knew he knew.

They were marvelous at keeping their tryst a secret, of course.  They had to be; it was a matter of survival, at least on her part.  But he knew.  He had known the moment it began, and he suspected that he knew what nights they met and what nights they abstained.  It was some sort of sense that he felt in his blood, a roiling jealous heat that could not be quenched.

Oh, he did envy her.  He would envy anyone in her position.  Touching skin he'd never held, kissing lips couldn't claim, hearing her name moaned by that deep, sensuous, dark voice.  Those things would never be his.

That was why he waited for Venus in the hallway she would have take to meet her secret lover, hiding in the shadows for her to make an appearance.  He didn't have to wait long before he heard her footsteps, her hair almost glowing in the starlight.  He did not make a sound until she was just feet from him, and then he stepped out, blocking her path.

She just smiled.

Had she expected him?  Or had she sensed him somehow?  Could she hear his heartbeat pounding in the dark as clearly as he had heard her footsteps?

"Prince Endymion," she pronounced, bowing just low enough to be polite and not an inch further. "You're about late."

"So are you," he answered, never dropping her gaze.

"My people need little sleep."  She laughed, scornful yet enticing.  "You've heard the stories, yes?  We have so much more stimulating things to do at night."

His rage and envy was a painful, howling thing, like a separate creature that somehow remained an indelible part of him.  He stalked forward until he could clearly see her eyes, blue steel shot through with gold.  He had the advantage of height, but it clearly didn't matter.  She wasn't laughing anymore, but her silence mocked him just as loudly.  "You could have anyone, Venus.  There are other courts.  Other planets.  Other men and women who would fall at your feet.  There's no reason for you to go after--"

"Kunzite?" Venus asked.  He hated how she said his name, like a secret that only she knew.  Like a secret she would _keep_.  "I appreciate your perspective, Prince, but I am quite satisfied with Kunzite at the moment.  More than satisfied.  I've actually been struggling to come up with the proper word for it.  Sated comes close, but it still lacks a certain something."  Her smile shifted, still sneering but with a new lethal edge.  "It tastes like victory."

"This is not a game.  He's not a prize to be won."

"Then why are you here?"

He held his ground.  He did not step away from her.  But retreat had been his instinctive reaction, and she knew it.

"Love is always a game.  Everything is.  What are our lovers if not the prize?"  She began to move past him, gliding past as if he were of no particular importance.  Did she see him as the loser, an obstacle, or a piece she'd long since discarded?

"I don't believe that."

She stopped and sighed, "Would you prefer to think of it as a battle?  You people do so love your bloodshed."

He ignored the casual slight against his people.  He'd grown inured to it by now.  "What makes him so special?"

"If you have to ask me that, Prince, I wonder why it is you seem to hate me so much."

"Why do _you_ want him?"

For a moment, Endymion thought he saw her soften.  Venusians were beautiful, of course, but dangerously so.  They were beautiful in the way of tempered blades, edges sharpened to keen, glittering points.  But in the space between heartbeats, that shifted.  Her eyes were just blue, her lips uncurled, and she told Endymion that she wanted Kunzite because she loved him.  And if she loved him, he could walk away.  They would have each other, and even if that left him alone with a monster born of his avarice, he could live with that.  Maybe one day, it wouldn't even hurt.

But Venus just smiled, sharp as ever.  "Why wouldn't I?"

He opened his mouth to scream, diplomacy be damned, when she pressed one finger to his lips.  His voice stuttered to a halt in his throat.

And he remembered other dangerously beautiful things.  Nephrite's father had been a sailor, and he had brought back stories from every port and dock he'd visited.  Stories that Nephrite had in turn told him.

Sirens that beat their wings and called storms into being, who steered ships into rocks with the sounds of their voice.  Sailors forgot to fight the weather or their sinking vessels in favor of climbing over one another to get closer to that song.  They killed one another and were killed in turn by a beautiful monster's talons, then devoured.

Mermaids were worse.  A sailor could plug his ears with wax to resist a siren's song, but a man need only look at a mermaid to want her.  Men flung themselves over the sides of ships and dove beneath the waves to find these women.  They forgot they needed air.  They drowned and the ocean maids dragged them into the deep.

Down in the crushing depths, past where any could venture, there was a fish called Light-bringer.  As if by magic, it held a glowing star before it, luring other, smaller prey just close enough to strike.  A fish that in some ways was just a mouth, just a roaming hunger to eat until it died.

Venus smiled.  Or maybe she bared her teeth.

"You could have him," Venus whispered, her voice equal parts revolting and hypnotizing.  She held him with her eyes.  He'd dreamed they turned blue, but they seemed to be shifting further towards gold, molten and glowing and damning.  "I'd let you. I wouldn't mind sharing him, just for tonight."  She licked her lips.  He whimpered.  "Of course, you'd have to take me along, but you wouldn't mind, would you?  Just as long as you could have your precious Kunzite for one night.  One night to hold in your memory forever.  I wouldn't even matter to you, and wouldn't that be a novel experience.  You could be in his arms, hear his voice like this in your ear."  She leaned forward until her lips were against his ear.  Her voice went straight to his groin and made his cock twitch.  "He could take you, and it would taste like _victory_."

His entire body trembled with want and need, blood singing for him to say yes.  It was a devil's bargain, and he didn't care.  He would pay the price, pay any price for just one night.

"No!"

He pushed her away from him, ignoring the tears welling in his eyes.  His body and maybe even his soul cried out that this was a mistake, that he would be bereft without her and Kunzite in turn.  But he knew better.  Beautiful monsters didn't make deals.  They just swallowed you whole.

"No," he repeated, trembling with effort.  "I won't let you poison it."

"I'm impressed," she spat, more venom that growing regard.  "You're stronger than I imagined."

"Please," Endymion whispered, aware it was pleading and too tired to care, "tell me that you don't do that to him.  Please."

"I don't."  He wanted to sag against the nearest wall and weep with relief.  Perhaps he would later, when he was alone and not half-hard from her influence.  "I don't have to."

"And you don't want to," he guessed, inspiration striking.  "Because if it really is a game, what's the point in cheating?  Winning isn't fun if you have to cheat."

If she didn't hate him before, she did now.  If she hadn't needed to keep her relationship with his general a secret, that enmity could escalate to full scale war.  He was extraordinarily lucky.  They could only ever be enemies now, but no one else needed to be involved.  Except Kunzite.

"You'll never have him," she vowed, furious but triumphant.  "Even if I let him go, he will never be yours.  You will never be his.  You will have nothing.  You have _nothing_."

"But I could have Serenity."

She froze, small and afraid and weak.  All of the warrior women in the princess's guard, to say nothing of the princess herself, seemed untouchable, powerful in a way that made others quail.  For centuries, there had been cults devoted to worshiping key figures in their histories, and the moment Endymion had set eyes on all of them, he'd understood.  The terror and awe they inspired was very real.

To some minds, Endymion had just brought a goddess low, and he thrilled at the knowledge.  "It's no secret that she fancies me.  And it would be one way to improve relations between our kingdoms.  Indeed, it would solve many problems between us.  Your queen wants all hint of rebellion stopped, and my parents want to marry me off.  You are in need of peace, and I am in want of an heir."

Venus paled, shaking and afraid.  "If you lay a hand on the Princess, I'll-"

"Do absolutely nothing," he said. "Because if you breathe so much as the edge of a word to anyone, and I'll tell the whole kingdom about you and Kunzite.  My parents and the people will be displeased, perhaps even horrified.  But I will speak for him.  I can attest to your bewitching abilities myself, after all.  I know exactly what you're capable of, never mind that you never used them on him.  Do you think Kunzite would believe that?  I wonder.  And either way, your Queen will never forgive you.  I trust I don't need to tell you what she does to people who wrong her."

Venus gaped at him, her eyes filling with tears.  She looked bereft, lost and defeated.  He could almost pity her.  She had shown him no mercy; he would repay her in kind.

"But if you walk away now," he said, "I'll keep my hands to myself and my mouth shut."

Tears fell down her cheeks.  He thought she would give in, but she said, "You will not force my hand.  No one will."

Endymion wondered if in her own way, she loved Kunzite after all.  Or perhaps this was a trick to make him relent.  How could he ever be sure?  "So be it."

She wept in earnest now.  "Don't.  Please."

"You will have Kunzite.  I will have Serenity."  If he were a better man, he would have left it there.  "This is your choice."

Venus flinched.  "If you hurt her--"

"I won't," he swore.  "I'm not you."

Maybe everything was a game, like she'd said.  If that was true, then he'd won.

But it didn't taste like victory.

**Author's Note:**

> So the aforementioned consent issues: I at one point headcanoned (and kinda still do - not sure on that one) that SilMil!Venus had some ability to control and compel sexual desire. In this case she uses those abilities on Endymion specifically to hurt and humiliate him because SilMil!Venus is not a great person.


End file.
